Game of Death by David Hosp Read Free Book Online Page A

in a self-satisfied, serious way.
    I turn and focus on the spot where I will make impact. It’s a field near a school, white lines painted on green grass. It is rushing up to greet me, to absorb me. ‘I’m
ready!’ I call out in terror and delight. I can hear Yvette and the instructor screaming next to me, their high-spirited whoops of joy and release adding to the thrill. The last twenty
seconds go by so quickly it is breathtaking, the ground overtakes my vision and perspective.
    And then I hit.
    It doesn’t hurt, and yet it feels like I have been blown apart, my being shattered into a billion flashes of light that spread out through the universe like giant fireworks in slow motion.
It lasts for only a split second, but it is beautiful.
    Then the bits of light coalesce. The screen explodes in a flash that recedes into the center of the world until the monitor is black.

CHAPTER SIX
    I’ve known Paul Killkenny for most of my life. We’re the same age, and he grew up a block closer to the projects in Charlestown, in a three-bedroom shared house
with five brothers and two sisters. His father was in the game, but at a much lower level than my father. Growing up, we were pitted against each other for no reason other than that we were a fair
match at everything we did: stickball, street hockey, little league, brawling. I think the adults in our parents’ circle viewed us as the two who would carry on the traditions of the old
ways. I can only imagine the collective disappointment they felt when we both walked away.
    My defection from the neighborhood was viewed, I think, with a sense of confused acceptance. Few from our group made it into the world of higher education, and so I was considered somewhat of an
alien. Paul’s departure, by contrast, was viewed as a betrayal. He not only failed to carry on the traditions of the gray-market world of hustlers where we grew up, but he became a cop. That
might have been okay if he’d decided to walk a beat in Charlestown. We had plenty of insiders who did that: young men who understood the way the system worked, and who protected our turf from
outside influences, while leaving the internal system intact. Paul, though, went big-time. He left Charlestown altogether and became a detective in Boston. That was viewed as ‘going
Hollywood’ by the townies, and it was not appreciated. I’m one of the few from the old neighborhood that he keeps in touch with.
    Paul agrees to meet me at a bar near Fenway Park at around five o’clock on Tuesday. It’s a hole in the wall and it’s empty when I arrive, except for two men in their sixties
who sit motionless at the end of the bar, staring forward like zombies. I wonder, as I sit there waiting on Paul, whether they are wax statues – decorations to make the place feel more
crowded. Only when one of them moves a hand to tip his whiskey into his mouth am I sure they’re alive. Even still, he moves with a stiffness that makes it seem as though he might merely be
mechanized at a rudimentary level.
    Paul walks in ten minutes late, pauses at the door to let his eyes adjust to the dark. He’s about my height, just under six feet, with thick black hair pulled back from an angular
forehead. He’s good-looking in a street way, with a square jaw and symmetrical features thrown off only by a nose that’s been broken more than once. We often competed for girls when we
were younger, and I still feel that rivalry.
    He scans the room, seeming to scrutinize the place. When he sees me, he walks over, moving with a loose, confident gait. It’s the same walk I’ve seen over the years from so many cops
on the street. Something in the way they carry themselves lets people know that they not only enforce the law, but, when the spirit moves them, they are the law. They are, at some level,
untouchable. It comes through clearly in their every move and every word. I suppose it’s a fair trade for all the crap that cops have to put up